


Cheers

by callunavulgari



Series: Author's Favorites [45]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Hank Anderson, Bartenders, Connor Is A Mess, Explicit Sexual Content, HankCon Big Bang 2019, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), M/M, Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Post-Game(s), Rough Sex, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 15:48:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: The man is older, steely gray hair pulled back into a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck. Meticulously groomed beard. He’s dressed smartly enough, his uniform a little ritzier than this place would warrant. Gunmetal gray vest, tight pants. The blue of his tie is a bright splash of color against all the gray. He’s got his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands are- god, they’re distracting. Large, with big knuckles and square palms. Connor gets a little stuck, staring at them.“Are you coming in or not?”Connor blinks, jerks his eyes up and away from those hands and-The bartender has blue eyes. They match the spinning LED at his temple perfectly.





	Cheers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doomcheese](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcheese/gifts).

> Thanks to doomcheese for creating not one, but _two_ glorious pieces of art that immediately made my fingers start itching for a keyboard. I'm so pleased that we ended up paired together, and it was such a joy to write. I got to write hot mess!Connor and android!Hank, which was a dynamic I hadn't even read before much less written. But the art intrigued me, because I'm also a sucker for bartender AUs. Art can be found on [twitter](https://twitter.com/doomcheese/status/1167082990003990529?s=20) and [tumblr](https://doomcheese.tumblr.com/post/187351667771/cheers-a-collaboration-for-the-hankcon-reverse).
> 
> Also thanks to night-ofthesoul, who did an awesome job as a beta, and prompted the addition of a scene that became one of my favorites in the fic. You guys were the best!

It’s been a long fucking day.

The streets are dark, gleaming oil-slick bright where the rain water has gathered to form dirty puddles in the crags of the asphalt. A car races by, a soundclap of roaring engine and thumping bass. Connor veers closer to the buildings on one side, but it’s too late. The spray of stinking water gets him from the hip down across his side.

He should go home.

He should go home to his empty apartment and curl up under sheets that still smell like the store. Forget it all. He curls his hands into fists at his side.

There’s a bar, just around the corner. The neon red of the sign is bright, casting the street in shadows and an ominous red light. It’ll just take a minute. Just one fucking drink, then maybe he can sleep. Get out of the rain, for a while.

Forget.

The bar is quiet. It’s a Tuesday, just after one in the morning.

There’s a few people lingering at the tables along the wall, but the bar itself is strangely deserted. The bartender stands behind it, methodically polishing glasses. He glances up when Connor steps into the room, and nods a simple greeting.

Connor hesitates on the threshold. For a moment, he’s not sure what’s off, and then he takes a closer look at the bartender.

The man is older, steely gray hair pulled back into a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck. Meticulously groomed beard. He’s dressed smartly enough, his uniform a little ritzier than this place would warrant. Gunmetal gray vest, tight pants. The blue of his tie is a bright splash of color against all the gray. He’s got his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands are- god, they’re distracting. Large, with big knuckles and square palms.

Connor gets a little stuck, staring at them.

“Are you coming in or not?”

Connor blinks, jerks his eyes up and away from those hands and-

The bartender has blue eyes. They match the spinning LED at his temple perfectly.

Connor snorts and lets the door swing shut behind him. Immediately, the chill of the AC begins to seep into his wet clothes.

He takes a seat at the bar, directly in front of where the android is polishing his tower of glasses. He can almost feel it as every human in the room holds their breath, the tension creeping upwards and holding there.

The android glances down at him, unconcerned.

"HK800," the android says.

Connor blinks. "HK800?"

The android sighs, the sound so explosively human that Connor can only blink as it sets the glass that its polishing to the side. It clinks lightly against the tower of others like it, all gleaming clear.

"Hank," it offers, like the name will make it easier for Connor. Like this is a conversation that it has had with humans hundreds of times. It’s a formality. There is something snide in the curl of the android’s lips, almost but not quite obscured by the mask of bland professionalism.

What it must think of him. He’s dropped to a point so low that even the androids are judging him. Connor fights the urge to bare his teeth and take a swing. That wouldn’t help a goddamn thing.

“Hank, then,” Connor says with a polite smile, gritting his teeth so hard that they ache. “I’ll have a whiskey, please.”

“On the rocks?” the android drawls, one gray eyebrow arched.

There’s an ache in the back of his skull, something growing there like a scream. The thin veneer of control slips, and Connor’s smile is suddenly full of teeth.

“_Neat._”

The android shrugs and reaches for a bottle of the house whiskey without asking. He thinks he should maybe take offense to that. But then again, Connor probably looks like the type of person who would drink well whiskey right now. Every part of him is soaking wet, and his shirt has gone ashen with dirt all across the right side where the puddle hit him.

His hands are itching for something to do where he’s got them tucked against his thighs, so he pulls out the damp pack of reds he’d stolen off Reed’s desk earlier that night. He shakes a cigarette loose and waves it at the android as it - he? - pours.

“This the kind of bar you’re allowed to smoke in?” he asks, already flicking idly at the lighter.

The android sets the whiskey down in front of Connor, then wordlessly passes him an ashtray.

The urge to thank him sits heavy and awkward on Connor’s tongue. The revolution has been clear about a lot of things - androids are to be treated as people. They’re to have jobs, a living wage. Breaking one is to all intents and purposes the same as manslaughter now. But the little things have slipped through the cracks a bit.

The silence has gone on too long, though. It would be weird to thank him now.

Connor lights the cigarette and tries not to stare. The people behind him seem to have resumed their conversations, the silence of the place nowhere near as oppressive as it was before. There’s a television in one corner of the room that’s playing the news, muted. The jukebox taking up a large portion of the west wall is playing something quiet and incredibly out of date.

“So,” Connor says, taking a sip of his whiskey. He does his best not to wrinkle his nose at the burn.

“So?” the android -_ Hank_ \- echoes.

Connor swishes the liquid around in the glass, grimaces, and throws it back. “Thought that the bartender’s supposed to keep the patrons entertained?”

“You’re thinking of a stripper,” Hank says, and sets another glass to the side. Wordlessly, he moves to grab the bottle of whiskey. He stares Connor down as he pours, all that narrow-eyed focus on him. “I’m not obligated to speak to you.”

Connor raises an eyebrow, smiles politely, and throws this one back too. He holds out his glass for more, throat still burning.

Hank hesitates, then sighs, pouring him a third. This time, he pointedly sets the bottle out of reach.

“Fine,” he says, the boredom heavy in his voice. “What do you want to talk about?”

Connor shrugs and takes a drag of his cigarette. “Whatever.”

Hank hums in the back of his throat and grabs a dish towel off the counter. He begins to wipe down the bar with the same level of meticulous detail he’d used on the glasses. He glances at Connor, blue eyes sweeping him up and down. Connor feels himself begin to flush as they linger across his chest, where the white shirt has surely gone almost transparent. He fights the urge to cross his arms across his nipples.

“The weather, I’m guessing, is quite bad,” Hanks says, his flat tone just this side of mocking.

Connor can’t help himself. He laughs.

He catches the flash of surprise in Hank’s eyes, sees the LED at his temple flicker yellow before the calm blue overtakes it again.

“Yep,” he says, a glimmer of warmth growing in his chest. “The weather is pretty shitty.”

Connor comes back to Jimmy's the next week. And then the week after that.

He tries not to go too often, just on the days bad enough that he knows sleeping will be a touch too hard to try sober. Hank seems to be a fixture of the place, if a recent one judging by the way people still flock to the tables instead of the bar itself.

He’s not what Connor would have expected from an android. For one, he’s kind of a dick.

But he also starts to anticipate what Connor needs before he can even say anything. The first day that Hank reaches for the woodford instead of the house whiskey, there’s still rust colored stains beneath Connor’s cuticles. It’s a bad day, and his hands are shaking as he brings the whiskey to his lips.

Hank watches him solemnly, his gaze shrewd and even. Connor doesn’t know too much about androids. He doesn’t know a whole lot about how they work, what makes them tick. Never even paid much attention to them, really. So he can only guess at how much Hank is picking up just from looking at him.

His hands are shaking so bad that he can’t even light his fucking cigarette.

“Here,” Hank says, and Connor blinks as a cool hand extracts the lighter from his grip. He looms over Connor, and Connor wordlessly leans across the bar towards him. Hank’s hands are steady as he reaches out and brings the trembling flame up to the tip of the cigarette. His eyes are dark.

“Breathe,” he says, something like amusement in his voice, and Connor inhales gratefully, the cigarette flaring to life between them.

He smokes in silence for a moment. His hands are still shaky as Hank passes the lighter back to him and resumes his night time ritual of wiping the bar.

“What did you do before this?” Connor asks, in a rush, because he just can’t take the silence anymore. Not tonight.

Hank raises an eyebrow at him. “You mean before the revolution?”

His lip curls when he says it. Connor frowns.

“I guess,” Connor says, taking another drag.

Hank sighs, setting his hands palms down on the bar. He stares at them for a long time, LED a solid yellow as his twenty-thousand dollar brain chews on whatever he wants to say. Connor shifts, a little awkwardly, and wonders if maybe he shouldn’t have asked. If that type of question was off limits when it came to androids.

Just when he’s thinking about taking it back, Hank opens his mouth and says, “I was a hunt-kill model. Prototype. First and last of my kind.”

Connor stares at him. Whatever he’d been thinking, it wasn’t_ that._

Hank meets his eyes.

“I fucked up.” He sweeps an arm across the bar, as if to say, _obviously._

“How?”

Hank’s eyes flash, and his jaw sets.

“Remember when I said that I don’t_ have_ to talk to you?” he snaps, and Connor’s eyes shoot up towards his LED. Still yellow.

The silence creeps in around them, tense. Connor downs his whiskey, then nudges it forward for more. Hank pours him another drink. The lines around his mouth are tight, his back stiff. For some reason, Connor never really thought that androids could be uncomfortable.

“I fucked up,” Hank says again. His mouth twists. “A kid died. Nearly got me decommissioned. Would have, if the revolution hadn’t happened when it did.”

“So you decided to become a bartender?”

Hank scoffs, and before Connor can blink, snatches the smoldering cigarette out of his fingers. He brings it to his lips, something defiant in his eyes as he inhales, then lets the smoke out all at once, fogging the air between them. There’s a nasty little smile on his lips as he leans in, tilting one hip up against the bar as he passes the cigarette back to Connor.

“There wasn’t really much_ deciding_ done. They saved me from the scrap heap, then gave me a job. Simple as that.”

“But-”

Hank shoots him a glare. He sets the bottle on the bar between them, and straightens up again. “Shut up and drink your fucking whiskey.”

It isn’t a habit. Not quite. Can’t be. Connor shows up once, maybe twice a week. Talks to Hank. Drinks. Smokes. Tries not to get too distracted by the way Hank’s hands curl around the neck of the whiskey bottle.

He doesn’t talk about the job much, but he does talk about little things. How he moved to Detroit, how the apartment is too small, too unlived in. How half his coworkers are fucking assholes and the other half resents him for getting the royal treatment just because he came out of the other side of the academy as some kind of prodigy.

“That a human thing?” Hanks asks him. “Seems to me that if you’re good at the job, maybe you should get the royal fucking treatment.”

They’re huddled in the alleyway out back, blocked in by a dumpster that reeks of week old booze, the sour-sweet tang of fermentation hanging heavy in the humid night air. There are brick walls to either side of them and it feels claustrophobic, to not have a second way out.

Connor’s not sure if it’s a human thing. Jealousy always seemed pretty universal to him.

He takes a deep drag of the cigarette they’ve been passing back and forth, and gives it back to Hank.

His shoulderblades scrape against the wall he’s leaning against when he shrugs.

“Think jealousy might be an everyone thing. Are you jealous of the androids up there?” He gestures, where the distant gleaming tower that once was Cyberlife looms on the horizon. They’d converted it into apartments, he’d read somewhere. Makeshift hospital in the basement, where androids could go for thyrium when they were running low or repairs when they didn’t trust a human to do it. “You know,” he adds. “The ones who started it all?”

Hank snorts, cigarette perched between his teeth. He inhales and the tip flares orange.

“You couldn’t pay me to be Marcus right now,” he says. “I’d rather be scrap than deal with that shit.”

Connor arches an eyebrow and takes the cigarette when it’s passed back to him. It’s burned down low, nearly to the filter, so he takes one last drag then stubs it out on wall he’s propped up against. “Why?”

Hank moves past him, gets the back door open, and props it open with his body. He glances back at Connor over his shoulder and tells him with a wry little smile. “Negotiation ain’t exactly my strong suit, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Connor follows him inside. “Thought you were designed for it.”

“I was designed to_ hunt_,” Hank says, and Connor swallows, a shiver running down his spine. The look in Hank’s eyes, the way he says it, low and dangerous, is an entirely different kind of distraction, and Connor isn’t paying the best attention to his surroundings, so when he stumbles over a misplaced floor mat, he’s not entirely surprised.

What he_ is_ surprised by is the way that Hank’s hands catch him around the hips and tug him upright without a second’s pause, like he was moving before Connor even started to fall.

“Thanks,” Connor murmurs, and doesn’t think about how breathy his voice sounds, how Hank’s hands against his skin _burns._ Hank squeezes gently, thumb brushing over the patch of skin where Connor’s shirt has gotten rucked up, then lets go.

“Not a problem,” he says, and strides out past Connor, where he inserts himself behind the bar in his usual place like nothing ever happened. He starts polishing glasses. “Can I pour you another?”

Connor swallows. “Please.”

Connor is still there half an hour after the last patron’s cleared out. This isn’t altogether unusual. Sometimes he stays late, drinking more to pass the time than out of any true desire to get drunk. He watches the people who come in, the ones who still linger at the tables instead of coming over to the bar, who flinch when Hank comes over to take their damn order.

Sometimes he and Hank play cards, but more often than not, he just annoys Hank until it’s time to leave.

This time, when Hank turns to look at him after the last guy has thrown down his money and vanished out the door, his eyes are narrowed. They take in _everything_, from the way Connor’s not quite steady on his bar stool to the alcohol-induced flush of his cheeks, and then he leans over and snatches Connor’s drink out from under him.

“Hey,” Connor protests.

The protest dies a quick, quiet death when Hank brings the glass up to his lips. He doesn’t drink, just touches his mouth to the rim of the glass, where Connor’s mouth has left a smudge there. There’s a flicker of pink, a tongue swiping over the rim of the glass.

Connor’s mouth goes dry.

“You’re drunk,” Hank tells him, accusatory.

“That is what happens when humans drink,” Connor says, aiming for serious and completely failing when Hank turns a stink face on him.

“I’m quite aware,” Hank says flatly, and pours the rest of the whiskey down the sink.

Connor gives a little cry of protest, but Hank just glares at him. “You know damn well that there’s a limit. And you’re well over it.”

“Mm,” Connor sighs agreeably, leaning back in his chair. “Yeah. Probably.”

Hank stares him down a little longer. Connor doesn’t know what he’s thinking, doesn’t know what's going on in there, but he feels good tonight. The whiskey’s left his head light and everything is a little too blurry, the neon lights pressing in around him like a warm blanket.

“Jesus fuck,” Hank grunts, and rubs the heel of his palm across the bridge of his nose. “Fucking humans.”

Fucking humans.

Connor isn’t _quite_ drunk enough to ask him if that’s something Hank’s ever felt like doing, but he’s close enough to think it, which means he’s too fucking drunk.

“It’s okay,” he says, pushing himself up and off the chair with a quiet groan. The feeling rushes back to his legs when he hits his feet, and he sways against the bar just long enough for Hanks’ hand to dart out, getting a fistful of Connor’s collar before he can do something stupid like hit the damn ground.

“Dammit, Connor,” Hank snaps, and Connor goes still, his chest pressed uncomfortably against the bar. His dick twitches in his pants.

“Sorry,” he says.

Hank makes a low, tsking noise and slowly lets go of Connor’s shirt. He thrusts a threatening finger into Connor’s face. Connor nearly goes cross-eyed trying to focus on it. “You stay right the fuck there.”

“Yes, sir,” Connor says, and throws a sloppy little salute.

Hank stalks off, muttering something under his breath. Probably more disparaging comments about his species. Connor doesn’t quite get himself situated in his chair again, but he does prop himself up against it, half clinging to the edge of the bar as he watches Hank stomp around, shutting off lights, closing out the register, getting the lemons and cherries seran-wrapped and tucked into the fridge.

Everything Hank does is loud, his LED a solid yellow against his temple as he jerks nozzles off of bottles and drops them into a bin to soak in antibacterial soap overnight.

“Should I lock the doors?” Connor asks tentatively.

Hank shakes his head. “Nobody else is dumb enough to come in here at three in the damn morning.”

They lapse back into silence, and Connor has nothing else to focus on, so he’s drawn to the single curl hanging loose across Hank’s forehead. His gaze lingers a little overlong when Hank crouches to pick up a bus tub full of liquor, his biceps bulging, the seams of his shirt straining.

Connor licks his lips and has to look away.

He is approaching sober, or at the very least, coming back down to tipsy by the time Hank comes to a stop at Connor’s elbow, gaze still accusatory. He’s flipped the sign to closed and locked the doors, rather firmly.

“Come on,” he growls, and gets a hand around Connor’s arm.

Connor is tugged, not very nicely, to the back of the bar where a staircase has been hiding around the corner near the bathrooms. Hank brushes a curtain to the side and begins to tow him up the stairs.

Connor licks his lips again. “So, not that I’m complaining, but where are we going?”

“Upstairs,” Hank tells him. _Obviously._

“Okay.” Connor blinks. “But why?”

There’s a door at the top of the stairs, and Hank takes a moment to prop Connor up against the wall there before he grabs the keys hanging from his belt and unlocks it. The space beyond the door is quiet and dark, but Connor can make out the shadows of furniture as Hank manhandles him into the room.

He flicks a light.

“There’s a dog,” Connor says, feeling stupid.

“Uh huh,” Hank says, closing the door behind them and pushing past Connor. He vanishes around the corner, and Connor can hear the buzz of another light being turned on.

“There’s a _big dog_.”

Hank sticks his head back out, holding an empty dog bowl in his hand.

“His name’s Sumo.”

Connor keeps his back to the wall, scooting around the perimeter of the room towards Hank. Distantly, he’s aware of the rest of the apartment - the too clean living room that houses little more than a slate gray couch and a coffee table. There’s a wilting palm tree tucked into one corner, just far enough away from the window that it’s probably not getting enough light.

But there’s also a _giant fucking dog_ staring him down. It’s ninety-five percent fur, but big and bulky enough that if it stood up on its hind legs it might actually be taller than him. It watches Connor with the biggest, wettest brown eyes that he’s ever seen.

After a moment, it lumbers to its feet and woofs softly.

“Nice doggie,” Connor says, a bit dumbly as it pads towards him. It isn’t growling at least.

To his left, Hank snorts.

“Sumo isn’t going to hurt you, kid,” Hank tells him. Then, “Sumo. Food.”

He disappears into the other room, and after another moment of curious contemplation, the dog follows him.

Connor swallows, and tries to decide if it’s a good idea or not to follow them. He could probably still make a run for it. Might fall down the stairs, but he could do it.

“You coming?” Hank calls from the other room.

Connor doesn’t move. “Not sure yet.”

Another snort, louder, and then the unmistakable sound of kibble being poured into a bowl. “Are you seriously afraid of my dog?”

“Maybe,” Connor tells him, half serious.

He edges around the corner and into the next room.

The kitchen is just as neat as the living room had been. There’s a kitchen table that looks like it never gets used, and shiny appliances that look like they get used even less. The only sign of life is the bag of dog food that Hank’s got clutched in his hands.

“Kitchen doesn’t get used much, huh?” Connor asks with an awkward little slide towards them. The dog doesn’t look away from the kibble that it’s wolfing down with alarming speed.

Hank pulls open a cabinet at random and sets the bag of dog food inside. The only other thing in the cabinet is another bag of dog food and a couple of cans of wet food for good measure. When he’s done that, he turns to look at Connor disbelievingly.

“I’m a fucking android. We don’t eat.”

Connor slowly takes a seat at the table, feeling unsteady on his feet all of a sudden. The chair scrapes loudly against the linoleum. “Don’t or can’t?”

Hank narrows his eyes. “Don’t, can’t. Doesn’t make much of a difference. I don’t need to, so I don’t do it.”

“Guess it would be a waste of money,” Connor murmurs, staring at the dog’s tail, which is thumping steadily against Hank’s calf. As he watches, Hank stoops down and scrubs a hand through the dog’s fur indulgently. The tail thumps faster.

“Why?” Hank asks. “Did you want a snack?”

Connor shrugs and sprawls backwards in the chair. He rubs a hand across his eyes. He’s fucking exhausted all of a sudden. He really should go home.

“I should go home,” he says.

When Connor looks up again, Hank is watching him again, back propped against the kitchen counter. His arms are crossed across his broad chest and he looks… like a lot of things. Intimidating. Huge. Like he could throw Connor around the room and not even break a sweat.

Hunt-kill model. He was designed, a state of the art prototype, to hunt people or androids down and make sure they never troubled the general populace again. God, he _could_ throw Connor around the room.

“Think you can walk properly yet?” Hank asks, and Connor blinks.

“What?”

Hank scoffs, crossing the room to hook one huge hand in the fabric of Connor’s shirt, easily tugging him to his feet. Connor staggers, and gets a hand hooked around Hank’s forearm to steady himself. The flesh under his arm is warm, unyielding, but not like plastic or metal. It feels like skin. Like real muscle, blood, and bone.

Hank’s eyes are narrowed. Connor squeezes once, then lets go.

“I can walk,” Connor tries to tell him, but Hank just rolls his eyes.

“Sure you can,” he says, and lets go of Connor’s shirt.

They stand there in the kitchen for a moment, the only sound around them the faint hum and gurgle of the refrigerator and the scrape of kibble over metal.

“I can stand, at least.”

“Progress,” Hank tells him scathingly. “You’re truly a paragon of your species.”

Connor lets out a quiet, annoyed huff. “All right, fine. So I drank too much.”

“Damn right.” Hank sighs, dragging a hand across his face. “Just. Take the damn bed. Sleep it off.”

Connor’s pulse jumps, and he sees the way that Hank’s eyes narrow all over again, how they flick from his neck to his face and back again. Knows that it registered, that whatever software Hank’s got in that head of his saw that.

Maybe he doesn’t know what it means, he tells himself.

“I couldn’t do that,” Connor tells him, shifting awkwardly on the balls of his feet.

Hank eyes him for a moment longer, then turns away. “Not like I use the damn thing anyway.”

When Connor continues to linger, Hank turns to glare at him again. “Do I really have to carry you there myself?”

Connor hisses, dick twitching helplessly in his pants and moves to- what? Cover it up? He can’t hide the way his breathing has gone unsteady, how his heart is probably speeding up, can’t hide the burning red of his cheeks as Hank’s eyes flick downwards, his eyebrows rising.

“Yeah, okay,” he says instead, and goes in search of Hank’s bedroom, feeling eyes on his back the whole way.

Connor doesn’t go back to Jimmy’s for over a month. He buries himself in work, tries to ignore his shitty coworkers and just get shit done. But it’s hard. Couple weeks of not quite human contact, and Connor doesn’t remember how to survive without it anymore.

He’s never really had friends. Too focused. Too driven. Makes for a great student, but turns out, not so great of a human being.

So he coasts on fumes. On the bad nights, Connor doesn’t sleep at all.

Detroit is a big goddamn city, and there’s a lot of shady alleys. A lot of people who think they know better than others. Even now, nearly a year after the revolution, androids still turn up broken. Missing. Hopelessly unfixable, their chest and jaws crushed, blue blood streaked across the pavement.

Connor can’t say he didn’t notice it before. He might have come to Detroit after the revolution, but he’d seen the messy aftermath. Now that he knows one of them, it’s different. Before it was easy to see the bodies of the androids that turned up dead in dumpsters as little more than broken dolls. Discarded after use, like the barbies some kids found on playgrounds with their heads torn off, plastic all scraped up.

They weren’t broken dolls anymore.

It’s a shitty Friday in October when Connor finally finds his way back to Jimmy’s.

He’s already a little drunk - drunk enough to think that it’s a good idea to stumble into the bar and seat himself down in front of Hank like nothing’s changed. He’s tired and fucked up from not sleeping, his hair curling too much in the front, probably stinking of blood and dirt and the fucking booze that he’d started drinking in front of a cornerstore before he realized he wasn’t that goddamn desperate.

“Hi,” he says, sprawling a little in his seat.

Hank blinks at him. “Hi.”

Then he reaches for the whiskey. House, this time.

Connor drinks too much, but this time he does it slowly. He smokes cigarette after cigarette, his shoulders hunched up to his ears, not really talking. The patrons are starting to get used to Hank, he thinks, watching as more and more of them sit down at the actual damn bar. He should be frustrated, because they’re monopolizing all of Hank’s time, calling out orders and even chatting with him at points.

The oppressive atmosphere of the previous months is all but gone, leaving something almost friendly in its wake.

It’s nice, probably.

Connor watches Hank while he drinks, noting the way that he’s not quite as stiff. He doesn’t smile, but there is some warmth there now.

Except when he looks at Connor. Then his eyes are cold again, icy, judging each shot that Connor tips back. But he keeps pouring when Connor asks. One drink, then two, then four.

The time creeps by, glacially slow. The world feels sluggish, gone blurry and undefined around the edges. Connor watches the clock tick onwards, measures the time as people coming and going, as more people start to trickle out than in.

When they’re alone, Hank wordlessly goes through the motions of closing up the bar. Connor watches him close out the register. Soak the nozzles. Clean the glasses. Put away the fruit.

And then Hank is in front of him again, one wry eyebrow arched towards the ceiling.

“What the fuck are you doing, Connor?” he asks.

Connor doesn’t _know_. He has no fucking clue. He thinks he might even tell Hank as much, staggering to his feet as Hank’s eyes take him in, disassembling him right down to his most basic, human components.

He doesn’t really remember Hank dragging him around the corner and up the stairs, doesn’t really register as the door closes behind them. Hank’s hands are on him, distracting, not quite gentle on his hips as he shoves him over the threshold.

They don’t kiss.

Hank’s eyes are narrow, shrewd, so icy cold as he stares Connor down that he can’t help but shiver.

“Please,” he says, and doesn’t know what he’s asking for.

Except he does, because when Hank sneers and reaches for his clothing, Connor goes boneless against him. He lets Hank jerk his shirttails up and out of his pants, lets those cool fingers slide relentlessly under the shirt to touch skin.

Hank tugs his shirt up and over his head, buttons popping off where the fabric pulls too tightly. Then Hank is reaching for his pants, flipping open the tab and jerking down the zipper so he can get a hand inside, wrapping warmly around Connor’s cock.

Connor makes a noise. It’s not a very respectable one, the sound punched out of him, half groan, half whimper.

He’s boneless, slack and wanting, open mouthed as Hank watches him, methodically jerking Connor's cock to full hardness before he shoves the pants down his thighs. A hand, huge and warm, reaches around to squeeze his ass.

“Is this what you wanted?” Hank jeers, one finger circling the rim of Connor’s hole. There’s a flush of angry blue across his cheeks. His hair is coming loose from its usually immaculate tail, curling against his forehead. His eyes are blue. His LED is not. “To lay back and take it? From a fucking machine?”

Connor whines, back arching as Hank dips the tip of his thumb inside, just enough to hold him open.

“That is it, isn’t it?” Hanks says softly. There’s a touch of triumph to his gaze as he fucks Connor open on his thumb. Something mean, too. Disdain, slowly unfurling in the curve of his lips. He shakes his head. “All this time, coming to this bar. Talking to me like you thought I was some kind of human, and you just wanted something like me to hold you up and take you apart.”

“No,” Connor gasps, but can’t help the twist of his hips when Hank adds another finger.

“No?” Hank says with a laugh. “_Look at you_.”

Connor’s cock jerks against his belly as Hank drags his pants the rest of the way down his thighs. They make it as far as his knees before they tangle, stuck on his shoes. His cheeks feel hot, and he- god, he wants to protest. Wants to say that Hank’s got it all wrong, that this is more. That he’s more.

But then Hank is flipping him over, until the arm of the couch is digging firmly into his belly, his ass high in the air. Hank pulls his fingers out, then leans over and spits, the cool slippery slide of the saliva trailing down the curve of his ass.

“All right, Connor,” he says. “This what you want? I’ll give it to you.”

No, Connor should say. It isn’t like that.

Instead, he says, “Please.”

Hank holds him down when he fucks him. He works Connor open on his fingers, finds something slick and cool that makes the glide of them butter-smooth inside of him. He fingers him open until Connor is crying out, hips jerking helplessly against the side of the couch.

Connor isn’t quite so gone that he can’t hear the sound of a zipper being drawn down behind him, but he is gone enough that the sound of it makes him shiver and shake, his entire body trembling, drawn out, _wanting._ Hank braces a warm palm against the center of his back, and Connor can hear him jerking himself with that same slick he’d used on his fingers.

When he presses inside, Connor _keens_.

There’s sweat on his forehead, at the back of his neck, making the hair curl there from the damp. His fingers tighten against the couch cushions, scrabbling for purchase, and he feels so fucking beautifully full that it’s all he can do not to come then and there.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Hank says, croons really. He’s hot where he presses up against Connor’s back. Connor wonders if he can overheat.

“Please,” Connor says, and then maybe, “Yes.”

Each thrust makes him feel like something is short-circuiting inside of him, the heavy press of Hank against his back enough to make him whine, unashamed, panting and open-mouthed. Hank hooks two fingers into his mouth when he gets too loud, and Connor sighs and shudders, then _sucks_.

It feels like it lasts forever, like it’s going to last forever, Hank relentlessly fucking him into a pile of goo while Connor’s body_ throbs_, heavy and over-sensitized, too much, too good, just like he thought it would be, just like he wanted. He feels very human, sloppy and wrecked, drawn out to the sum of his parts, an exquisite organic mass of firing neurons and shaking limbs.

Hank groans against the back of his neck, bites down there, and Connor?

Connor’s back arches.

He comes, harder than he’s ever come before, and when he comes down from it, Hank is still fucking into him, harder even, losing the rhythm of it as he hisses something unintelligable into Connor’s shoulder.

And then he stills, groaning again, louder.

Connor is shaking.

Hank slips out of him, moves back and away, leaving behind sticky trails of something down the backs of Connor’s thighs.

Connor didn’t know that androids even came equipped with something like jizz.

“Get up,” Hank tells him, and Connor shudders, but moves.

He doesn’t know what he looks like when he meets Hank’s eyes. He knows that his face is probably red, that there’s pillow creases etched into one side of his cheek, and that his mouth is still wet.

Hank looks at him, and Connor lets himself look back.

Hank’s hair is loose around his shoulders, and there’s a flush of blue across his cheeks. He’s still wearing his damn uniform, the vest and dress shirt hopelessly crumpled, tie askew. As Connor watches, he jerks his pants back up around his muscled thighs, hiding his softening dick from view.

Connor licks his lips.

“Hank,” he says, his voice choked.

“Go to bed,” Hank tells him, and for the first time that night, the anger seems to drain out of him. His shoulders slump. He sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face.

Connor shakes his head and plants his feet. Lets his lips twist defiantly.

Hank stares at him. Sneers a little, but even that looks tired. “What? You gonna walk home?”

“No,” Connor says. “But I’m not going unless you come with me.”

“To bed?” Hank asks him, sounding disbelieving.

“No, to the goddamn moon,” Connor snaps. “Yes, to the damn bed.”

Hank blinks. “Why?”

“Because.” Connor glares, finally kicking free of his pants and shoes. Now that it’s over, he feels stupid, wet and sticky, and fucking _vulnerable_. “I want you there.”

“You want me there,” Hank repeats, squinting, like it doesn’t compute. “You know I don’t sleep, right?”

Connor shrugs. “Can you do something like it? Sleep mode? Hibernate? Turn yourself off, then back on again?”

“Technically,” Hanks says, slowly.

“Then I want you there.”

Hank is still looking at him like he’s stupid, like he’s fucking faulty. And Connor is tired. He’s a fucking mess every given day of his godforsaken life and this is what he wants. A surly ass android with a giant bear of a dog who lives above a bar.

Connor crosses the space between them, and goes up on his toes, already reaching.

Hank’s eyes flare wide just before Connor kisses him. And then they slide closed, his LED finally, blissfully flickering blue.

Connor makes the kiss soft.

Sweet.

Everything he couldn’t say with his entire body keyed up to eleven.

When he pulls away, Hank’s eyes flutter open.

“What was that?” he asks.

Connor smiles at him. Says, “Come to fucking bed.” 


End file.
